Halo: The Master Chief Collection: We are Golden

This is a massive milestone for the team and also means that the game is available forPre-Order and Pre-Downloadright now!. They couldn’t be more excited to start having fans grab this game online so everyone can hit the ground running on release day! The team has been working incredibly hard to make this happen, so they’re all eager for you to play this labor of love.

One of the questions they get asked most is about worldwide release plans. The reality of worldwide sales and retail processes always makes simultaneous launches challenging. Some fans expressed disappointment in their original planned release date of November 11 in North America and November 14 in several other territories around the world. They hear us loud and clear, and are happy to announce that Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be released on November 11 for the majority of fans around world!

There are still a few countries that will see a slight delay due to public holidays. In Europe, Belgium will release on November 12 and France will release on November 14 as part of their typical Friday release schedule. Fans in Japan will see a release of November 13. Given the social aspects of the experience, they are really happy to get it as close to a simultaneous worldwide release as possible so that we can all celebrate on November 11 and start playing together.This is literally going to be the biggest Halo experience so far

That is to say, the sheer size and scope of the content. To recap, Halo: The Master Chief Collection contains four complete Halo games, every multiplayer map ever released (including DLC from console and PC) across each game, a complete remaster of Halo 2 with all-new audio and Blur’s mind-blowing cinematics, and all of this is tied together with (and enhanced by) a revolutionary user interface.

From the start, their philosophy has been to give Halo fans the best possible experience and not compromise the quality or features of the collection. The result is that Halo: The Master Chief Collection will take up almost all of the usable space of a single Blu-ray (45 GB), and they will also issue a content update at launch that is estimated to be 20 GB. You’ll be able to start playing Campaign and more as the content is installing, with some features and multiplayer content being added via the update. Yes, the update is large, but they weren’t about to cut corners to save disc space. This ensures that you are getting every bit of Halo goodness we can fit in. Their work is not done, however, as they continue to tune, tweak and optimize the online experience to ensure a smooth multiplayer launch. This will continue right up until launch day.

One caveat they wanted to share is that Spartan Ops, their episodic co-op experience from Halo 4, will now release in December.